Fear. It's a word that is simple enough. It is a verb, it is spelled using only four letters of our 26 letter English alphabet, and is one syllable in length. So why, if this word is so small and simple in nature, do we allow it to control so many aspects of our lives?
Most of the time, we apply the word fear to things we aren't even sure if we should be fearful of. The word fear is defined by our good friend Merriam Webster as "To expect or worry about (something bad or unpleasant)," yet we constantly proclaim that we "fear" things that are simply unfamiliar to us.
Fear is the enemy of adventure. Fear is the enemy of learning new things and having new experiences and living a life you will want to look back on and talk about with you're in a rocking chair at 85. Fear is the enemy of life itself.
If we spend a large chunk of our lives, or even the tiniest sliver for that matter, living in fear of all of the things we do not know or understand or have yet to experience, we are bound to miss out on a very large part of what life has to offer us.
Of course their will always be the existence of the "unknown" in all of our lives. "What if this doesn't turn out the way I want/hope it will?" "What if I do this and it turns out to be a disaster?" "What if all the bad outcomes of this particular choice/situation I could possibly imagine come true?" You can sit all day long and make up hundreds, upon thousands, of excuses for staying on the sidelines of your own life.
And, if you are anything like me, those thoughts will do exactly that. You will spend to much of your life in the safe and comfy bubble that you were taught your whole life is the best place to be.But that isn't the way things should be. We only get one life. This life. This one right here that we are living is all we've got. And to let one moment of this precious life be lives letting this simply idea of fear control us is an insult to the universe, our Creator, and everyone who came before us that for one reason or another wasn't able to live their lives all the way out.
When it comes down to it, you have two options on how your life will go. You can choose a life of safety and certainty. Sure, this path will be easier and much more outlined and have clear planned out endings and destinations. But this will also be a life without adventure. The second choice you can make is to choose not to let the idea of fear control your life. You can choose to go out and have adventures, and try new things (things that might seem scary at first) and make sure your life is one worth remembering.
Everyone has people in their lives that they love, and love them. So why would you want to waste a single one of the moments you have with them living in fear. Because none of us have a single moment promised to us. Who knows what day will be our last and what moment will be the last moment we get to spend with the people we love.
I have chosen the latter. I plan to make a life filled with the people I love, and the adventures we have and the memories we will make. I choose to stand up from the bench, tell the coach I'm ready to play and run to the field head on. I choose to try my best not to let fear of the unknown scare me away from taking my life by the horns and making it an unforgettable one. Will you?
